[WP] It's the 24th century. The number one cause of death among humans is suicide.

I hang up the phone.

The police confirmed with me that Kevin had committed suicide last night. They attributed it to the supposed ‘Great Awakening’, which has been an inadvertent side effect of the United Nations recently banning the dissemination of religious materials after they had found that there is no afterlife of any sorts.

They just announced the results a few years ago – people from all faiths and of no faith voluntarily took the risk to trek into the afterlife, just to see if there was anything beyond. It took a lot of sacrifice, plenty of permanent death caused by the ceasing of brain activity. But finally, we found a way to bring people back from brain death.

However, that wasn’t as good of a thing as it might seem. We put people under to the point where they stopped functioning, but still registered brain activity. Upon revival, the faithful reported various forms of “afterlife”. The faithless; the abyss. When we did the first rounds of testing of revival from brain death, everybody reported nothing. Everyone was in doubt, and the UN immediately ordered another round of testing on different individuals with different scientists under the same conditions.

Nothing.

We had discovered that there is absolutely nothing after this life. Psychologists call it the ‘Great Awakening’, because it’s when our brains finally resolve the cognitive dissonance and accepts the fact that there’s nothing beyond, and shuts down in despair.

It happened to Kevin. It happened to my parents. It happened to my teachers, and most of my friends. I don’t think it’ll happen to me, though. I still think there--

The phone rings again.

My girlfriend has committed suicide.

I hang up the phone, and walk to my room. I look at our bed, knowing that I’ll never see her again.

Ever.

I walk out to the garage, and climb in the car.

I turn the key.

/r/WritingPrompts Thread